$90 Oil Is A Very Real Possibility

August 8, 2018: $90 Oil Is A Very Real Possibility

U.S. sanctions on Iran could push oil prices up to $90 per barrel later this year.

The first round of U.S. sanctions on Iran just took effect, a slew of measures targeting Iran’s currency and its financial sector. The U.S. sanctioned the trading of bank notes issued by the Iranian government, the trade of gold and precious metals, any transactions involving the Iranian rial, Iran’s sovereign debt and its automotive sector.

The sanctions will tighten the screws on the Iranian economy, and the measures have already sent the currency tumbling. However, the more important sanctions – targeting Iran’s oil exports – take effect in November.

There is still a wide range of possibilities for what is set to occur over the next three months in regards to the impact on production and exports. Originally, the Trump administration stated its desire to push Iran’s exports to “zero.” The subsequent spike in oil prices forced them to backtrack quite a bit.

But, the Trump administration has made it clear that it wants to cut off as much Iranian supply as the market can bear without sending prices up too much. Those are, in many ways, conflicting goals, but it likely means that a significant chunk of Iranian production will be disrupted.

“I don’t think the market has fully baked in losses over a few hundred thousand barrels [per day]. That’s where the price impact potentially would come in,” Richard Nephew, a senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, told S&P Global Platts Capitol Crude on Monday. Read more click here